


Kids Will Be Skeletons

by van_daalen



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Focused on Mercy, Gen, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/van_daalen/pseuds/van_daalen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In times of great conflict, no one makes it out unscathed- not the old, the poor, or, to the great fear of many, the young. It is a bitter truth... but one that everyone, even someone who has conquered death, must come to accept. None can run from it in the same way that they can't run from their own shadow. One day the angel dubbed Mercy will have to learn. Learn that in war, kids will be skeletons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kids Will Be Skeletons

**Author's Note:**

> First chapter is mostly just a set up for the story. The real action (and consequences of the action) will start in chapter two, which will hopefully be coming soon, as it's already partway done.

No one could escape the terror of worldwide conflict- not forever, at least. War was a relentless thing. It was a hound, racing after every foe until it tasted bittersweet flesh, and a hound that had no true master. Many had tried to tame it, to shape its hunger to their own desires. But those foolish souls quickly learned that there is _nothing_ that tastes better to the hound than the blood of an unworthy master… and **no** man is worthy of conquering war. All living beings, whether flesh and bone or metal and gears, were targets. Nothing mattered to the hound but feeding. It would feed, and feed, and still yearn for more. _Always_ want more. More, more, _more._ The beast, if allowed to thrive for long enough, would not stop until every single speck in existence had felt its horrid bite. There were none who deserved it, but _none_ who could escape it.

‘Twas a truth that, like many, were not easy to swallow. The more one pondered it, the more they delved into the depths of it, the worse it got. Who did the hound strike? If he strikes at all souls, as he does, he strikes at _all_ . Soldiers, yes. Civilians, yes. The elderly, _yes. Children?..._ Yes. A wicked truth, a terrible trick of the devil. To think that there are those who claim to go to war for _their_ sake. For the children, they say. Truly? No, not for them. _For the hound? Yes._ ‘Twas a wicked truth, of course, and one that few dared acknowledge unless forced to do so.

For those in the revived Overwatch, it was a fact faced often, and one feared more. How could they not, when they let _kids_ fight alongside them? How could the youngest of them even accept it? Armor and guns beyond their time or not, they were so _youthful,_ with far, far too much ahead of them. Yet they waded waist deep into the typhoon, braving the raging waves as if they were invulnerable- as if heroes really did never die. But maybe some of them weren’t really kids. Not anymore, not after the upbringings they had, after the kind of years they had put in. They were veterans to some, still children to others, and only food for the hound. Did they understand the brutality that awaited them? Did they know what happens in war? Would they find out in time, or would they only be granted first hand experience?...

In the end, _she_ knew that she could not protect them forever, that her makeshift family loved the world too much to stay safe in its shadows. No, the kids would do what they felt was necessary, and she would have to watch them fall, one by one, while her once beloved technology kept her alive. _Of course_ she was capable of bringing some of them back- but she would have to be too late eventually. Even an angel could not bring back the dead left cold. It was the hound’s way of taking her blood; making her watch over a restless flock, day after day, as they all pulled her in different directions, each more dangerous than the last, each leading to a different den of lions. She could always, _would_ always show them Mercy, but war never would, never _could_.

Sometimes it gave harsher reminders than those she was used to.

(Her parents lying among the rubble, bodies broken, eyes glossy, yet still showing pain. Her best friend’s child suddenly being unable to breathe, suddenly mystifying the greatest medical minds- her realizing the problem a moment too late, a _single fucking moment_ too late. Helping Amélie recover after her kidnapping, not noticing the blankness in her expressions, the emptiness in every word that spilled from her bruised lips… finding Gérard the next morning, being too late too late **too fucking late** to save him. Countless more times, each one weighing on her mind, each one ready to play with her, to toy with her mind until she breaks down- and she always breaks down. Always breaks down out of sight, never able to let another share her burden. _Alis grave nil,_ she tells herself, _nothing is heavy to those with wings,_ an excuse she wraps around herself, uses as a shield, because hell knows her suit cannot protect her from mental wounds.)

The children are not children, not really, and they are not of her blood, but they are her kids nonetheless, and because of such, they are ample targets. Try as she might, Angela “Mercy” Ziegler cannot stop the wretched hound from catching their scent. There are times where she narrowly escapes another small-coffin-funeral. Everywhere she goes the hound follows, nipping at her heels, ready to destroy what she loves the moment she’s not there to play doctor. Oh, but of course it gets close no matter what, no matter how close she stays to her kids. She does her best to play it off as her imagination, but she knows that the beast comes nearer with every attack. Soon, she knows, soon it will be too close to stop.

That day of reckoning is dreaded, dreaded yet inevitable. And so she holds her kids close, holds them so tight, showers them with as much affection as she dares- just in case the next mission lowers its facade and reveals the end of the line, the end of the road. Every time one of her sheep leave she fears the worst, waits with baited breath for their return. Sometimes she comes with, staff in hand, a restless hound- nay, perhaps a wolf- of her own laying in her stomach, ready, waiting, for someone to try and harm her cubs. She knows it will not be enough forever, but she can hope. And oh, _oh will she hope._

 

But hope alone was never enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This work is named after a completely unrelated quest from a mod for Fallout: New Vegas (called Niner), which I can only assume was named after the song (of the same title) by Mogwai.


End file.
